Thinkpads Forum

hello, i am looking to get a better wifi card for my t410 as i currently have the Intel(R) Centrino(R) Advanced-N 6200 AGN card it seems to be. i am not totally sure if its the allready best one installed or not but i would like to get some better performace with a better card.

if anyone knows i will be very greatfull!

Thank For reading.

Atheros AR9380, but it requires a modded BIOS with whitelist removed.
Such as this: http://www.ebay.com/itm/190722777110

The 6200 is a very capable card. The specs of your wifi router may need improving.
Are you on a network faster than 35 MB/s?

edit: having said that - I did just buy a card from the above link. Thanks RBS.

jaspen-meyer wrote:The 6200 is a very capable card. The specs of your wifi router may need improving.
Are you on a network faster than 35 MB/s?

edit: having said that - I did just buy a card from the above link. Thanks RBS.

oooh, so its pretty decent then. thats good!

my wifi is "ment to be the best in the uk" which is called sky broadband which u can get their normal broadband or their faster "fiberoptic" which is faster i have the normal one as theirs no fiberoptic in my eara as i just moved as my my wifi gets like 8mps up and 1mb down which is terrible.
they really need to hurry up and make it so that i can get fiberoptic in my area!

Thanks for the reply.

RealBlackStuff wrote:Atheros AR9380, but it requires a modded BIOS with whitelist removed.
Such as this: http://www.ebay.com/itm/190722777110

oh okay.

my wifi card is not the pci-e one as mine is next to the cpu fan area.

The other option is the wireless AC route but that requires a router than supports wireless AC cards which are theoretically much faster than wireless N. As was stated above, it requires a bios mod to remove the white list.

http://www.sky.com/shop/broadband-talk/ ... unlimited/

Sky Broadband in Sky Network Area: Maximum home download speeds up to 17Mbps. Existing customer set-up £60 for Lite or free for Unlimited. Monthly usage caps: Lite - 2GB. Maximum upload speed: Lite and Unlimited –1.3Mb.

17Mbps is about 2MB/second, and that is the 'maximum'.
You're getting 1MB/s. I don't see a problem.
Your wifi card can handle >200Mbps.

btw: Sky Fibre download speed is twice as fast. Sky Fibre Unlimited Pro, 4x as fast, is 76Mbps.

I have a Netgear 500+ Wifi powerline connection down in my basement for my desktop. It has built in Wifi for my thinkpads. The closer you are to a repeater, router or hotspot. The faster your wifi performance. It doesn't have the gigabit interface connection. Gigabit powerline ports are just hitting the market. My powerline does 8MB down and 1.5mb up which is my upload cap. Basically 60mbps down and 15mbps up. My internet is as high as 150-200mbps down over ethernet.

The other suggestion would be adding a repeater or two in your home to maximize your speed and coverage.

These are a couple suggestions in addition to an improved wifi card.

pretty sure the 410 doesnt accept full size wifi cards.

But anyway... I dont mind the Intel 6200. Its a 2x2 5ghz card so I see typically 240 on 2.4 and 270 on 5ghz.

It maxxes out at 300 on both but you rarely get it.

The Intel 5300 and 6300 are better being 3x3.

eg. http://imgur.com/XVP1xci

That's peak. Expect it to fall to 400 360 330 whatever.

If you're prepared for it, try the Intel 7260 which maxxes out at 867 but you need a ac1750 router.

Be scientific about it and measure your data rates (speeds) with testmyspeed.com or speedtest.net.
Take a few measurements using wifi, both near to your router and away from it.
Take measurements without wifi, using an ethernet cable connected to the router.

The data rates you're paying for can be easily handled by quality 1x1 (one transmit signal, one receive) wifi cards made in 2003.
Your 6200N card, 2x2, is of good quality and was released in 2009.
The cards being suggested, AR9380 and Intel 7260, are 3x3 and from 2010 and 2013 respectively.

As proof, I just on my wifi network with:
a) Intel 2200BG, circa 2003
b) Atheros AR9382
c) Intel 6205N
and rates averaged 20 Mbit/s download and 2 Mbit/s upload with all three. tested using speedtest-cli.

btw, PCI-e describes the connectors which connect to the motherboard, half-size describes it's height -- it's half as tall as the full-size card.
Your machine uses a 'half size pci-e' card, the thing you see beside the fan, but it also has a full-size slot.
I assume RealBlackStuff knows what he's talking about and that the card he lists would get installed in the full-sized slot.

okay thanks for the replys so far!

i just been doing some tests on speedtest.net right next to my sky hub (closest as possible) so dar the download was 8.03mbps and the upload was 1.01 mbps. which could be better but i am getting it for free as i just moved and i used to have fiberoptic and untill i get it in my area it will be for free.

usally away from the hub i get 7.5mbps for download and 0.9mbps upload speed on speedtest.net which is not much differance but effects my upload speed when i upload videos on youtube for my rapidly growing channel which seeks more vids.

even though i get those speeds on speedtest.net when i download somthing it downloads at 1mbps and is very slow and upload is even slower at around 250kb/s anyway around this issue?

thank you al/ for your great responces so far!

I went with an Apple Airport AR938X in my T400. Brutally fast but I lost the LED on the lid in doing so. Its not an issue because I can see that Im connected on the LCD anyway. It was kind of fiddly getting the driver correct but Im impressed. It is full size though.

Ron

Yes, those AR9380 are also called Apple Airport Extreme, and other names like AR5BXB112.
Who cares about a wifi led?
You always have the wifi icon in your system-tray to check if you are Online or Off.

At the time they were trending for around $25.00 in the states. I grabbed it for half that from about 5 states away and figured I was lucky.

Ron

When dealing with comparable specs for each, the general rule still holds.

Atheros > Intel.

Well, Qualcomm Atheros now...

jronald wrote: It is full size though.

There's a half-size version as well, the problem is that it's somewhat uncommon and quite expensive, as in $50+ the last time I saw one...

If I use an Intel 5300/6300 what do I gain with the AR9380?

They both top out at 450 at 5ghz.

Also does anyone have a download of the no whitelist 410/420 bios?

TonyJZX wrote:If I use an Intel 5300/6300 what do I gain with the AR9380?

They both top out at 450 at 5ghz.

Speaking generally, not as if those cards are equally matched on stated specs, then the sensitivity of the Atheros card is greater. I also find more settings available with Atheros cards than Intel ones.

TonyJZX wrote:If I use an Intel 5300/6300 what do I gain with the AR9380?

They both top out at 450 at 5ghz.

That's an oversimplification of how the cards 'perform'. The FCC has hundreds of pages documentating
AR9380's performance under a variety of conditions.

Here is a head to head comparission by Tom's Hardware http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/kil ... ,3164.html -- someone here mentioned Intel released a new driver, which improved performance, after these tests were run.

The Atheros card will run on open source drivers, the Intel card will not.

A half-sized model of the ar9380 is the 'Killer Wireless-N 1103'.

Here's my problem here... an Intel 6300 is about $10.

The mini AR9380 as you say is $50 plus... if you can get by with the full size and have the right bios then you may see better performance than a $10 Intel 6300.

Problem is you're battling over old technology. I have a pair of AC1750 routers from 2013 and they too are already well old.

I get that we are kind of stuck. I really wish we had a mini 3x3 ac1750 card like the AC7260 but I dont think we ever will.

I mean where does the AC7260 fit into this? I know its 2x2 but I would think its by some measure faster than an AR9380 with the right router.

How about something like the QCA9005 ad card:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/-/251964922705

Shows what AD is being used for - basically connecting devices and transfering data locally:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5Pksnh4UJM

AR9380 is more like $15: http://www.ebay.com/itm/331727523194

TonyJZX wrote:I mean where does the AC7260 fit into this? I know its 2x2 but I would think its by some measure faster than an AR9380 with the right router.

On paper the Intel 7260 (866 Mbps) destroys the AR9380 (450 Mbps).
There are lots of 7260 threads of Windows users complaining of random disconnects though.

What card are you using with your AC routers?